MiniDisc a handy way to keep in tune all the time

By Vishnu "Ramius" Mahmud

JAKARTA (JP): We geeks love techno junk, mainly those things that makes us geeks supreme. We want gadgets that have many buttons, LCD screens and state of the art gizmos that (supposedly) give us technical superiority over other lesser mortals. We rarely follow trends since we blaze our own. Thus it is not surprising that I find myself to be the one of the few who owns a portable MiniDisc recorder.

Before, I would lug my CD player around whenever I walked or biked but could never make my own compilation of music of my favorite songs. I could make copies on a tape deck and use my Walkman but the music quality was just never near enough to the crystal-clear sound of a CD (and they were not geeky enough either). Then, during an excursion on Ebay, I found the MiniDisc.

MiniDiscs are a combination of CD and floppy disk technologies. While the floppy disk is 3.5 inches (holding 1.4 megabytes), the MiniDiscs are smaller (2.5 inches) but can hold nearly as much music as a CD. It may not get as much press nowadays with the constantly improving MP3 players stealing the show, but I'd stick with my MiniDisc any day.

You may have seen them in Mangga Dua or any top electronics store; a small oversized cassette box that is too small to be a CD player but is definitely not an audio cassette walkman. But it allows you to record your favorite tunes with CD quality music and carry it anywhere, anytime.

Using the Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding (ATRAC) compression system designed for ultra high fidelity audio, the MiniDisc can record up to 74 minutes of high quality music on a small 72 x 68 x 5mm disk. With an optical transfer cable, you can record any song onto a MiniDisc player automatically without the need to adjust the volume or bass or other sound configurations.

You can even buy prerecorded titles in Jakarta (or on the Internet) but since the selection is still extremely small compared with CDs, copying remains the preferred route to acquiring new music.

Using my portable CD player with its Optical output port (and the aforementioned Optical Cable), I can make compilations of my music onto one disk. All my favorite Japanese rock bands can go on one disk, while the very best of the Canadian band The Bare Naked Ladies (five albums) onto another. You can even copy MP3 music onto a minidisk from your computer. Unless you have a specialized sound card that has an optical output port, however, you will have to copy the music over a simple stereo cable and make the sound adjustments manually on the computer. But the result is still better that any tape deck.

Playing music on the MiniDisc is easy. You can jump straight to the song you want to hear (try doing that on a Walkman), or edit/delete tracks on the fly (not possible on a CD player). MiniDisc players nowadays have a 10-second shock resistant buffer that allows a smooth continuous playback (unless you work inside a blender). Most MiniDisc players and recorders use rechargeable Ni-MH batteries for a maximum of 10 hours playing time. That time can be extended with a conventional battery back up case using AA or AAA batteries to 25 hours.

So why did I choose a MiniDisc over an MP3 player? The first problem I foresaw on the MP3 was storage. MP3 is compression technology stored on memory chips that was extremely expensive in 1997. In addition, if you got bored of the music, the only way to change the music was to return to your computer and upload new music onto the player. Of course, memory prices took a tumble in the past 3 years and Sony now has a memory stick device that lets you add/swap music on the fly.

The MiniDisc, on the other hand, does not require a computer since you can record off your stereo. You can also edit, change and delete tracks on your MiniDisc, a feature that has yet to be installed on MP3 players. Being compact and robust, the MiniDisc is an excellent way to record not only your music collection but also meetings and other worthwhile events. Some reporters on the Formula One circuit have been using MiniDisc recorders instead of the regular cassette recorders. And, at $2 a disk for 74 minutes of recording time, you can afford to make, carry and change as much music as you wish.

I used my MiniDisc during the long and boring flight home from America a year ago. After listening to all the onboard music and movies, I simply plopped my MiniDisc onto my shirt pocket and played my own music for 16 hours. My compilation of MiniDiscs takes a very small space in my bag compared to my CD collection. And that is what I like best about the MiniDisc: small, portable and extremely geek chic!

For more information, visit www.minidisc.org or www.minidisco.com.